Hospitals, mis-diagnoses, and the yo-yo effect
On Tuesday April 22nd I found myself in the ER at Covenant Hospital in Lubbock Texas. I was turning highlighter yellow and I felt less than chipper. By midnight I was in my room on IV fluids only and already starting to do what I do best... worry! Everybody has to be good at something and I do very well when it comes to overthinking things and worrying about what might be. The GI doc on call came in to visit late that night and discussed the different tests they would perform the next day and what was going to occur. I was still under the impression it was just my gall bladder... Boy, what did I know. I wasn't even worried about the right things.
The next day a procedure known as an ERCP was performed to see what was going on with my gall bladder. That was followed up with an MRI. Let me pause here to say this. I am slightly claustrophobic and I sinned when they took me to this test. They asked me if I had problems with confined spaces and as a guy I said "of course not!" Now in my defense I had never gone head first into an MRI machine and at the time I weighed around 270 so it was like shoving a bowling ball into a garden hose. After a moment of prayer and deep breathes everything went as planned.
The coming days were the hardest.... waiting. It didn't take long to figure out something else was going on. The GI doc who did the ERCP put a stent in my bile duct to relieve the pressure and let the bile into my intestines. It had been backing up into my liver and into my blood stream causing the Jaundice and bathroom issues. I was toxic. It was a Thursday morning when, what I call the yo-yo effect, began. The doc who did my procedure entered the room with two nurses, much like a bad episode of ER or House. He was the first one to use the dreaded "C" word, cancer. My emotions were from one extreme to the other. From "how could this happen to me" to "I know God will overcome". Lisa held my hand and we wept together. Within an hour though, the attending GI doc came in and said "It's not cancer, I looked at the charts, nothing to worry about." I chose to believe him.
By Monday of the next week my Jaundice numbers were down and we were released from the hospital thinking that this stent in my bile duct would have to be looked at and replaced from time to time but that was it. Yet in the back of my head the "C" word was lingering. There was a nagging feeling that this wasn't over just yet. My overthinking and worry would become an enemy to me. I met with the attending GI doc at his office a few more times and felt his concern really wasn't to diagnose but to dismiss and move on. The battle was just beginning and the LORD would commence the lesson.
Proverbs 12:25 says "Anxiety in a mans heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad." Anxiety was becoming an issue and the LORD, knowing every fiber of my being, knew I needed to cast it off. In June there was another ERCP, another stent, and another test for the ol "C" word. I had moved over to the doctors office that was doing the procedures. He seemed to genuinely care about what was going on. He would ultimately send me to Dallas for testing in August. Yet even there the doctor, when he finally found the tumor, said it probably wasn't cancer. Back and forth, from worry to false hope. God said listen to me, give me your worries, it was (is and even has) been one of my greatest struggles. Finally in the surgeons office at the end of August we had a plan but would know until the end of September... Worry....
We had endured what would be two mis-diagnoses and continued the ups and downs of the What Ifs. Let me tell you, learning to give God the "what if's" is one of the hardest yet one of the greatest things that we must do. I am still learning to do this at all levels but I know He calls me to cast my anxieties, all of my worries and fears, upon Him (1 Peter 5:7). It is a daily submission factor. It's the only way to face the yo-yo!
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